Thanks fellows.
Can't be bothered with clear plastic windows, Rob - suspension of disbelief and all that...
Meanwhile, I've been doing some work on the sixth desert terrain board, which will give me a 1200mm x 1800mm table with a lot of built in flexibility
I decided to use another offcut piece of 1:1 scale theatrical/TV scenery ABS plastic rock face to form a rocky ridge - with the Renedra mud brick house (plastic kit) backed up against this rocky outcrop.
Things I learned...
My wife bought me a Bosch hot glue gun for Christmas. This is the first time I've used it in anger. Everyone should buy one of these. I've used them for years on stage scenery, but for some reason it never occurred to me to use it for wargames terrain modelling. Who knew? On my previous experiment sticking a piece of ABS moulding onto a foam slab sheet (see page 66 of this thread) I laboriously pinned and glued the moulding in place. The whole process took quite a time - and then I had to wait 24 hours for the glue (UHU POR) to go off.
The hot glue gun on the other hand took precisely 1 minute. It delivers a reliable stream of what is effectively piping hot molten plastic which sets rock hard in approximately 20 seconds. It sticks to foam but doesn't melt it. It sticks to plastic. (I stuck a bit of plastic to a bit of foam as a test and I literally couldn't pull them apart... Well, I did after a while, but it ripped a section of the foam substrata away with it). The other thing is that you can effectively use it as an instant gap filler. Bloody amazing.
The Renedra mud brick house on the other hand, is sorely disappointing. It's a nice looking building superficially - especially with the addition of the dome from the add-on extras kit. But it doesn't fit together well at all. I had to spend literally
hours filling and filing all the joints with green stuff, PVA-and-talc gunk, and various other fillers to get rid of the myriad of all-too-obvious joins all over the bloody thing. Really a lot of extra work. Not good at all
Still... Now it's in position (hot glue gun!) and undercoated, I'm sure it'll look fine once painted and titivated.
I added a front courtyard (and an interior floor, since I chose not fit the door) made from some leftover paving slab sheet from the Renedra medieval tower kit.
I then added some pieces of broken down wall (pre-production resin samples from a forthcoming Kickstarter).
Then a slathering of lightweight wall filler to conceal all the joins between the rocky ridge, the foam slab and the house. I also used this to build up the groundwork behind the house, and to create pathways for infantry up onto the rocky outcrop.
Then, once dry, a liberal coating of gloop to cover the whole lot, with a top dressing of sand applied while the gloop was still wet, and then various areas of grit and talus to represent fallen rocks, scree, and broken down bits of wall...
Here are the WIP shots...
And undercoated with Halfords ultra-matt camo brown car spray...
Painting and tuftage to follow...
(PS. Chris - I haven't forgotten: I have a nice selection of offcuts for you - I just need to find a big enough box to send them now!
)